BILL RICE:
 
BILL RICE




 
 
 
 
 
CEO and co-founder of Kaleidico in Flat Rock. Kaleidico is an Internet technology company that provides lead acquisition, allocation and management systems to sales organizations through its icoSales lead management software. Previously, Rice was vice president of home equity and corporate programs at Quicken Loans. He also served as COO of Rock Bank, leading Quicken Loans, then the bank’s mortgage lending counterpart, in efforts to obtain a federal thrift charter and approval as an FDIC-insured institution. Rice has been involved in various ventures in multiple industries, including DeepGreen Bank, an automated online home equity lender that was acquired in 2004 by LightYear Capital; Iridium, a Motorola-backed venture delivering global satellite-based telecommunications; and TASC, an innovator in IT operations technologies, acquired by Litton-PRC and subsequently Northrop Grumman. Rice earned his MBA at the University of Phoenix and has a bachelor’s degree in political science from the U. S. Air Force Academy.


WHERE BORN: "Kentucky."

MOST INFLUENTIAL PERSONS: "Michael Lobsinger is my current partner and a wealth of focus and experience."

LAST BOOK READ: "Everything is Miscellaneous: The Power of the New Digital Disorder by David Weinberger."

WORDS THAT DESCRIBE ME: "Passionate, focused, curious."

WHERE MY FIELD/INDUSTRY IS HEADED: "Consumers and businesses are aggressively trying to figure out how to have an effective two-way conversation about complex products and services on the Internet. This is the first media that offers this real-time, direct response marketing and sales environment. Unfortunately, fundamental pieces are missing in the architecture. These missing pieces cause consumers to cast important and personal information out into anonymous cyberspace and hope for a response, while sales representatives struggle to chase down potentially interested consumers. We are beginning to see how intelligent lead management (SmartCRM) solutions can pull together consumers, marketing, and sales into a seamless and responsive Internet customer experience."

FAVORITE TECHNOLOGICAL GADGET: "iPod, because of its simplicity of form and function."

FAVORITE PLACE: "California. It’s a wonderful blend of intelligent people, good weather, and a little craziness."

FAVORITE HOBBY: "Reading, running, golf."

FAVORITE FOOD: "Mexican."

MY HIDDEN TALENT: "Simplicity. I have always had a knack for parsing complex scenarios and processes into their most basic and impacting components -- making them easier to understand, more accessible, and more scalable. And then blowing them up for big results."

HOW I WANT TO BE REMEMBERED: "Enabling people with a passion in their belly and a kindness in their heart to achieve things they never thought possible within their own capabilities and means."

Grant Thornton Website At the annual awards reception in April 2014, one Leader & Innovator from the previous 12 months will be selected as the Grant Thornton Leader & Innovator of the Year.